


Modern and Contemporary

by AuntyA



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:26:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3566279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuntyA/pseuds/AuntyA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A poem-a-day and a sad tale of revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Five, seven, five, seven, and seven - tanka

“Shiro, stop!” the guy was screaming. “Please Shiro, Shiro, it wasn’t me.” Whining, “I swear it wasn’t me.” Starting to cry. “Shiro please, please I swear. Stop.” He was pleading now in a high voice. “I prefer Gin as you know.” Gin said with his teeth clenched.

“Please.” Gin pulled on his hair. “Use.” Gin punched him in the side of the head to stop the whining and then smashed his face on the coffee table. “The name”, he kicked him hard in the small of his back. “Gin.” And kicked him once more in the knee with his heel.

Now the guy was lying unmoving in a bloody heap on the rug, making small mewling sounds. Gin took a step back, straightening up slowly, and moved the cloth bag, pulling it towards him with one foot. It was heavy and clanked slightly as it slid over to him, the contents glinting in the low light of the apartment.

+++++

Gin sat in the caffe looking glumly at the watery Americano still sitting in front of him. He stretched out his foot to check that the cloth bag was still there under the table. He stirred his coffee with the small spoon. He flipped the spoon, and using the back like a mirror, he checked his eye. He sighed.

His work schedule was seriously killing him this week. He patted his jacket pockets, taking out his phone to delay the inevitable. He checked his poem of the day to waste some time:

_the hot water in the abandoned kettle slowly cools still carrying the resentment of colder water_

His phone had been on silent. He had missed three texts while he had been working, all from his kyodai. “I guess now is the time to report back in.” he said to under his breath. “Better get started if I want to get this finished.”

+++++

Gin rubbed at his eyes with long cold fingers. Shit, he was tired. Standing around in the bus station was boring. His suit trousers and shoes had to be ruined by now he thought. He looked down at the lumpy cloth bag by his feet. And yes, he thought, the shoes were a write off but the trousers might still make it if he tried that drycleaner by the train station.

He took his reading glasses out of his vest pocket to check his phone. Gin played with his phone while he waited for his specific orders from his division’s wakagashira. He scrolled through his new daily poem, another tanka:

_the round spoon with the curvature of a concave mirror scoops out my eye and swallows it_

+++++

Gin was in his room, looking at a suit vest on a hanger. That stain was definitely going to need spot cleaning. The week had been really tough on his suit. He had a headache. His eyes were killing him. He hung his suit jacket back over the vest, also the tie, and then replaced the hanger on the back of his door. He stepped out of his room and into the hallway, closing the door.

He walked down the hall and knocked on the shared bathroom door hard. “Occupied,” a low voice answered his pounding. “Just a sec buddy, I’ll turn it off and get out.” Gin leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He heard the shower stop running, some rustling noises, then the door opened and Gin heard a deep laugh.

”What?” he said, eyes still closed “What is so funny?” “I’ve never seen you out of a suit!” Abarai giggled. Gin’s eyes opened to slits, his mouth not smiling. Abarai continued, “I like the undershirt. It’s a good look on you. You gonna roll it up to your armpits when it gets too hot old man?” Abarai snuck a look at Gin’s feet “Where are your flip flops?” Gin said tightly “Fuck off, I’m just trying to get a cold cloth for my eyes Abarai. Don’t be such a shit.”

Abarai stopped laughing, “Sorry man. Let me get that for you Gin.” Gin slumped back against the wall outside the bathroom and shut his eyes again. He heard water running and then felt a soft wet cloth pressing against his closed eyes. The voice continued, “I’m sorry I was teasing you. You do look like shit actually.” Gin shook off Abarai’s hands, and lowering the cloth, opened his eyes again.

Abarai was hovering in the bathroom door, his hair down and still wet, wringing his big hands, his tattooed face concerned. Gin said “Leave me be, stupid. Thanks for the compress,” and he turned away. Abarai called after him “Take it easy man, I’m off this week if you need help with anything. Just let me know.”

Gin called back, “Sure. Fuck you. Never. Still got work to do.” He headed back to his room, his face flushed, eyes burning. He needed to take his suit to the drycleaners and have a nap, maybe not in that order. Fucking Abarai always ambushing him in the hall. Although they were both wakashu, that Abarai needed to give him some space.

+++++

The piano bar was dark and empty. All the girls had gone home. Bartender was around in the back somewhere counting bottles. The karaoke box was playing ‘My Way’ on the screen. Now that’s ironic. The guy kneeling in front of him in the booth was crying. Gin slapped him, just the once. Slapped him sharply across the face. Gin stopped and shook his bangs out of his face.

The guy babbled on, sniveling, “I have the money now. Gin, seriously, friend, Gin, I have the cash right here. I swear I can pay it back. Gin. Gin. It’s really just the interest that I’m having a problem with. I swear I’m good for it. I just fell a bit behind. God Gin. I’ll get it for you now. Gin. Please.” The guy could really talk fast.

Gin picked up the tin snips from the table in one hand and turned his head slowly back towards the guy. Sweeping the karaoke lyric books off the table, he pressed the side of the guy’s head down flat on the table with his other hand. He set the snips gently against the guy’s ear. “Hold your hands behind you.” Gin said, smiling. “Stay still and let’s get this over with.”

+++++

The mahjong parlour was on the second floor. Gin walked up the linoleum covered stairs. He pushed open the door and walked into the harsh fluorescent lit room. He stood by a potted palm tree and wished he still smoked as he looked around for the manager.

“Hey Shiro!” He turned. Shit. “Shiro!” A fat guy with dyed hair walked over to the foyer. He looked pissed. Gin could hear the clack clack clack of a busy day in the main room. “Hey I answer to Gin, you know,” he said smiling. The guy ignored him “So Shiro. I’m not paying.” “Is that wise?” Gin asked, hands in his pockets, fingers grasping the brass knuckles in his right pocket.

“Fuck yes. I’m not paying you.” His ugly face was frowning. He pointed a stubby finger at Gin’s face. He spat out “And they are going to send you, Shiro you fuck, home to your oyabun with a little message.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder as two thick men loomed out of the smoky haze of the mahjong floor behind him.

At some point, he had gotten a sharp blow to the face that had busted something in his eye. Later he sat outside the building, holding a handkerchief to his bloody eye with an aching hand. He wasn’t sure but he thought he also might have a busted rib. He had shot one of them in the thigh and he thought he got the other guy in the hand.

That slowed them all down enough for him to make it back down the stairs.  The tiles hadn't ever stopped in the main room. Well that seems to be the game they are all playing these days. He had called in for a pickup. He just prayed that they didn’t send Abarai.

+++++

Gin wasn’t sure that getting Abarai to do the drycleaner run was such a good idea. He sat in the caffe, ever hopeful for a good cup of coffee and trying a double Americano today, waiting for the fucker to show up with his suits. He held his hand up to his face and lightly touched the eye patch. At least it didn’t hurt as much today.

Gin was reading his poem of the day on his phone, reading glasses on over the eye patch, when Abarai slid in opposite him at the table, hanging the drycleaner bag on the booth’s coat hook.

Gin guiltily swiped quickly away to the phone’s home screen, snatched off his reading glasses and put his phone away in his jacket pocket. Then he turned to flag down the waitress for Abarai’s order. Probably something sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last poem Gin reads in the caffe:
> 
> one narcissus draws close to another like the only two adolescent boys in the universe
> 
> All poems in this chapter are real and by Tada Chimako not me.


	2. Two, four, six, eight and two – cinquain

Gin checked his phone as he waited in the barbershop for his barber to be free. The barber was sweeping up the floor of the shop. Gin sat in his vest and shirt, with his legs crossed at thin ankles, his booted feet twitching slightly to the crazy sounds of the Italian pop music on the radio.

His poem of the day was some type of haiku he had not heard of before. He looked up from his phone to see the still darkened street outside. He sat in the bright neon of the shop, outside it was black and still raining. It was so early. This barbershop was open twenty-four hours and it was always empty when Gin went. He came here because he never needed an appointment at this time of day, and the Italian barber knew exactly how to cut his hair.

_Still as On windless nights The moon-cast shadows are, So still will be my heart when I Am dead._

He scrolled past some other administrative emails from his kyodai he was ignoring, when his barber called to him from across the shop, ‘pronto signore argento?” Gin stood up and put his phone back in his vest pocket.

His suit coat and overcoat hung on the coat rack by the chairs. He walked to the barber chair and sat down. He looked at his own pale reflection in the mirror, past the combs in Barbasol, brushes and creams. There were postcards of faraway places tucked into the edges of the mirror. “Oggi prima una rasatura?” The barber asked, his round face pink and eager for his tip. Gin agreed.

The barber placed paper around and under his shirt collar, and then covered Gin with a drape around him, fastening it at the nape of his neck. Shave first and hair cut second. Gin leaned back in the chair and closed his good eye. He still had the eye-patch. It looked like he’d probably lose the sight in the damaged eye now.

The barber was almost finished the shave when Gin felt a malevolent presence next to the chair. The razor disappeared and the barber melted away silently to the counter. Gin opened his eye. A gentleman was standing next to him wearing an expensive overcoat beaded with rain.

Gin stayed where he was. “You get your hair cut here?” Gin said with a disbelieving air. He finished almost a whine, “Why couldn’t you wait until my shave was finished? What’s the rush? Tony’s not finished my shave yet.”

His wakagshira, Kuchiki Byakuya, stood next to his chair, looking down a thin pale nose at him. “Ichimaru-san, you need to get some items out of the boxes. Today I believe. You were not answering my texts. So I came myself.”

“Bank only opens at 8 AM. That soon enough?” Gin asked. “Only half done the shave and still have to get my hair cut.” The ‘fuck you’ was obvious in his voice.

Kuchiki nodded. He grasped Gin’s wrist, firmly. Squeezing hard so the bones ground together. “I have said that it must be today. So today it will be.” He released Gin’s wrist slightly.

He waved his other gloved hand back towards the coat rack. “I have left the briefcase over there. Switch it out.” Kuchiki finished. Gin nodded slightly, an awkward action while tipped backward in a barber chair, pain radiating up his arm.

Gin saw Kuchiki’s regular driver standing in front of the door of the shop having a cigarette. Arms crossed, blocking the door. Gin could see the bulge in his coat at the side where he was carrying.

Gin’s attention snapped back to Kuchiki when he spoke again. “Gin. You spend too much time on your appearance you know. Vanity and pride are two very different things.” Kuchiki stared at him grey eyes boring into Gin’s good eye. “You need to start trying harder.” His mouth disappeared into a grim line. Gin could feel the waves of menace rolling off his senior.

“I expect you to text me when you are done with it.” Kuchiki said, and then added as a last strike, “And take Abarai with you to the bank.” Gin looked back at him, his good eye narrowed, without speaking.

Kuchiki’s face showed no emotion but Gin was sure he was laughing at him now. “Sure, sure, of course, no problem. I’ll call him when I’m done here.” Gin smiled with his lips tightly pressed together. “No problem.” He repeated.

++++++

“Very nice to see you Ichimaru-sama. You early today. First appointment.” The elderly Chinese tailor bowed low and motioned to the footstool. “You eye no good?” Gin shook his head. The tailor’s young apprentice also bowed low and stepped over to offer Gin an arm. Gin ignored the youth, stepping up and onto the footstool in his undershirt, boxers and stocking feet.

Gin’s phone buzzed in his vest pocket on the pants press where he had left it hanging over by a cutting table. He ignored the phone. The tailor paused hands stilling, mouth now full of pins, waiting for Gin to move to answer the phone.

He didn’t so the tailor continued again to measure basted vest and pants pieces against him, adjusting the fit, pinning and chalking the muslin. Handing items to the apprentice and working with his head down, thick magnifying glasses balanced on his wide nose. The tailor clucked instructions to the boy in Cantonese.

The second floor tailor shop was filled floor to ceiling with bolts of suit fabrics on rosewood shelving, a wall of spools of thread and piles of paper pattern pieces heaped neatly on cutting tables. Large arched windows looked out at a busy shopping district and the roofs of the Tofukuji temple complex.

Light streamed into the workroom. The apprentice now sat off to the side on a high stool. Ready to run at the tailor’s command. Gin had thought about perhaps a pale grey three-piece, with a thin stripe brought out with a notch lapel. The tailor had some fabric in mind for him to see.

When the tailor was done with the first fitting, Gin stepped off the footstool and leaned against a cutting table. Waiting to look at fabrics, he got his phone from his vest pocket. Missed messages, okay Torii. Shit, Abarai. Fucking shit, Abarai. That jerk Shimeji. And poetry. A thin finger swiped and opened the last one.

_These be Three silent things: The falling snow…the hour Before the dawn…the mouth of one Just dead._

The tailor placed a hand on the small of Gin’s back, startling him into looking up from his phone, “So. Ichimaru-sama, what weight you are wearing now?”

Gin answered curtly, “Sig-Sauer p928, ankle. And my normal p226, back holster.” He placed the phone on the worktable, then turned and picked up both holstered weapons from the worktable behind him to hand to the startled apprentice.

The tailor nodded. “Something very easy Ichimaru-sama. I make you look handsome. And pockets?” Gin held up his brass knuckles and two sheathed knives. The tailor nodded. The apprentice paled and looked down when the tailor hissed something at him.

The tailor moved to the table and began to chalk some more lines, speaking rapidly to the apprentice in Cantonese. Gin would look at fabric in a minute. Abarai could wait. He would wait.

++++++

As he got out of the cab he could see Abarai waiting outside the bank, leaning on his parked bike, black full-face helmet over his left arm, checking his phone. His hair was in a kerchief. His leathers matched his bike, red and black.

Gin, snorted, “Che, buddy could you be any more fucking obvious.” Abarai, looked down at him, “What? What do you mean? I’m like a bike courier, no?” He slid his phone back in his pocket and stood up.

Gin frowned, “No. No, I don't think so. Shit whatever. Let’s go get this over with.” Gin walked to the revolving door to the lobby, Abarai letting him go first.

They sat in the tiny safe deposit box room with their boxes stacked on the little table. Abarai sat silently in front of the door and Gin stood in the back, the briefcase open on a chair.

Gin was stacking plastic wrapped bricks on the table from the boxes and putting back stacks of bills from the briefcase in their place. The bricks he counted off and then moved to the briefcase. There were also ammunition clips and a number of handguns on the table in Ziploc bags.

Suddenly the door to the little room swung open. Abarai, hand firmly in his jacket pocket, sprang up from his chair to block the view of the person opening the door. Gin paused for just a half a second and then continued quickly dropping the bricks down onto the chair and sliding the box shut on the money and guns.

The female teller who had opened the door cowered back a bit when faced with Abarai in leathers looming over her. “We’re not quite finished up in here yet Honey.” He smiled down at her. She squeaked and took a step back, “Sorry, so sorry! I didn’t realize that you weren’t finished in here yet. Pardon me, I’m so sorry!”

“No worries Beautiful, I don’t mind the interruption, anytime, as long as it’s you.” He winked at her and smiling widely, putting one large warm hand on her upper arm, turned her around quickly and walked with her back to the door, keeping her from seeing what was on the table. Gin growled very softly and worked to finish up his work before they got interrupted again.

Abarai closed the door behind her with a few more words, and stepped back to his chair. Gin said testily, “Did you have to smile so much that she could see your fangs? Che. Fucking moron. You should have locked the door.”

“Oh, Gin-sama, are you interested in a little chick like that? I can get her number for you if you want.” Abarai was serious. “I’m not so interested.”

“Fuck off. I can get my own dates.” Gin snapped. “Help me put the boxes back. We have to get your fucking chicklet back in here to lock up.”

Gin hefted the briefcase in his hand. As always, it was heavier on the way out. He wanted to get into a cab so he could get away from Abarai who’d have to take his bike back to the office.

Abarai opened the door of the bank for him. As they walked out through the building lobby Gin felt something was off. “Abarai, you see that? That’s Danwei out there.” Abarai answered him, “Yep.” His voice lowered. Gin moved the briefcase to his other hand so he could get to his weapon. Abarai had his helmet in one hand and his other in his jacket pocket.

As they approached the revolving door to the street, they could see a number of guys in suits through the glass outside on the sidewalk. Gin said “So?” Abarai said “I got this one Senpai, my favour to you today because of your eye.” Gin rolled his good eye.

Once through the revolving door, Abarai walked out and nodded at one of them, moving straight at him, “Hey. Buddy. Danwei is it?” The guy, a big guy dressed in sagging pants smoking a thin cigar, came a step closer, looking at him angrily “Yeah fu…”

Abarai didn't let him say much more, raising his motorcycle helmet above his head, he smashed the guy full on in the face. Danwei fell to the sidewalk on all fours, blood streaming from his nose and mouth. He tried to grab at Abarai’s leg. Abarai kicked him in the stomach and brought the helmet down again hard on his head. Danwei groaned and laid still, eyes closed, holding his face.

“Next!” he bellowed happily and moved on to the guy standing a bit to the left.

Gin wasn’t interested in a street brawl. He moved off down the street to find a cab. As a man stepped in front of him, Gin elbowed him in the face with his free arm and kicked him hard in the knee, shoving him down to the sidewalk.

“Hey Shiro, where you going? We have something to talk to you about,” shouted one of the men moving towards him, hands outstretched. Abarai came out of nowhere bringing his fist with a weighted brass knuckles out of his jacket pocket and slamming the guy in the chest. “Who the fuck is Shiro?” he snarled. Once the guy was down, Abarai kicked him in the back of the knee with his boot.

He turned to Gin, “Just take yourself along there buddy. You’re too fragile for this today I think. I’ll see you later.” He leered at Gin, “You know Gin-sama, I got her number after all if you want it. She likes you, thinks you are very mysterious with the eye patch and the pale hair.”

Gin was pissed, “No you fuckwad, I do not want…” Abarai interrupted him excitedly, “There’s a cab.” He was holding the last guy under his arm in a tight chokehold, punching him in the side of the head. “Did you want me to flag it down for you?”

Gin snorted and turned away from the fight. He let go of the brass knuckles he was holding on to tightly in his pocket and then waved his hand to grab the cab. He turned back to Abarai, “Get on your bike and stop fucking around. Meet me back at the office and then maybe we…, I can finally go for lunch.”

Abarai smiled at him, laughing. “No problem Gin-sama. See you there in a bit.” He shoved the guy he was punching away and shook his big hands in the air to stretch them out. “You are right, I gotta run. I think your date called the police already.” He ran over to his bike. He gave his helmet a quick once over, then put it on, threw a leg over the seat and roared off down the street as the cab came to a stop for Gin.

In the back of the cab, Gin scrolled through his phone messages, eagerly checking for the poem and then sitting back and staring out the window, briefcase on his lap, his mind going a million miles an hour thinking about the poem, his heart, his suits and his pride, as the text to Kuchiki waited to be sent.

_Longing Waiting, hoping Heart slowly dying Memories re-fuelling forgotten dreams_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poems Gin is reading are real and a type of poem called a cinquain.
> 
> Poem #1 Moon-Shadows by Adelaide Crapsey
> 
> Poem #2 Triad by Adelaide Crapsey
> 
> Poem #3 Longing by Seren Roberts


	3. Five Two Seven Five - Haiku

Gin stood in his shitty room with his new suit laid out on the crap bed. The tailor’s apprentice had delivered it to the boarding house earlier in the day. The suit inside the garment bag was wrapped in tissue paper smelling faintly of jasmine and was handed over with the requisite bowing and scraping accompanied by murmured broken Japanese phrases of politeness.

He was in only his boxers trying to decide what to wear tonight. They were to attend a new year’s party for their office, but Gin knew it was really a performance evaluation. He wanted to look good, to look like a man who could be effective.

He wondered if the eye thing was going to decide for him either way. Fuck it. He needed a suit that would offset the sea of sunglass wearing thick-necked thugs in dark suits and white shirts. They would be jockeying for position and attention. He just wanted to make it to the other side of the day.

His room was too small for a closet, he had a bar on the ceiling that he hung his clothes from and a hook on the back of his door. There was a small window roughly five feet off the floor above the bed. The windowsill held a few items that needed to be kept cold, his cans of coffee and a few cans of beer.

The desk had three drawers and he stored his weapons, ammunition, booze, drugs and first aid supplies inside it. Under the desk he kept his shoes, his wash basin and an electric iron. He had a small pile of poetry books off to one side of the desk under his ankle holster. He didn’t have room for a desk chair.

He sat cross-legged on the desktop and looked at his clothing choices. He had a picture taped over his bed. It was a cartoon of a violet-eyed blond Buddhist monk, aiming a large revolver out of the frame. The monk was dressed traditionally but also wearing an unrolled sutra scroll around his shoulders.

“Oh Sanzo-sama, what do you think I should wear tonight? Monochromatic maybe?” Gin was talking to the picture. “Give me a sign oh angry monk. Grey? Silver? Robin’s egg blue maybe.”

There was a sharp knock on the door. Gin started off the desk with surprise, but caught himself and walked to pull open the door with an irritated jerk. Abarai was standing there in the hall. His red hair in a French braid down over his shoulder, tattoos half hidden under long bangs. Black pants with a black vest, over a blood red shirt and a thin black tie.

“What the fuck do you want Abarai?” Gin snarled at him. He crossed his arms over his chest.

Abarai, stepped back his hands up defensively, “Hey, hey, hey slow down there, Gin-sama. Relax man. You weren’t answering my texts as always, so I thought I’d come down the hall and see if you wanted a ride.” He leaned in closer and grinned wolfishly, “Nice look you have going here old man.”

Gin, glared at him. “A man can be in his fucking underpants in his own house can't he? I haven't figured out what to wear yet.”

“You don’t want to waste getting your brand new suit wrinkled on this one. It isn’t fucking worth it.” Abarai said dismissively, adding, “Haven't you heard the saying ‘beware all enterprises that require new clothes’?”

Gin looked at him with his good eye narrowed. “Seriously. You of all morons quote fucking Thoreau at me while I’m trying to get dressed?”

“Hey, aren't you impressed that I know that?” Abarai smiled widely at him. “Just trying to help. I brought inarizushi, beef doria and canned coffee for you.” He held up a plastic bag from the FamilyMart. “They mostly only have shit food at these parties you know.”

Gin, still frowning, took a step back to make room for Abarai, and then closed the door behind them both.

++++++

Gin leaned against the banquette behind him, tipped his head back and looked at the party. His bangs hid the eye patch taped on to cover his bad eye. His drunk colleagues’ karaoke was completely obnoxious. His head was pounding, and it was a truly shitty party. He waved off a hovering bar hostess who looked like she wanted to sit on his lap.

There had already been a fight that had busted a mirror over in the corner. The bottles of Shochu and beer cans were lined up on the knee high table but he was drinking Yamasaki out of a glass. His named bottle was on the table. He cracked open his eye and reached out a hand for his drink.

He had finally decided on the robin’s egg blue nehru jacket over a linen long sleeved shirt. In the dark piano bar, you couldn’t tell anyway. Points for trying though. He had lost Abarai in the crowd of burly wide boys in black suits ages ago.

He put his hand over his eyes, pressing gently on the eye patch. As long as he didn't get in a fight today he would make it. He could deal with the exhaustion as long as he just didn’t have to hurt anybody today.

“Yo Gin.” Oh fuck it was Shimeji. He opened his eye, straightened up and held onto his glass. “Hey Shimeji.” Gin curled his lip in distaste.

A thick and flabby man with a perfectly round face slid onto the banquette next to him, “So Gin, what’s going on with this shit? What the hell happened with Danwei? I’m hearing things. We need to have a conversation.”

Gin said darkly “Ask Abarai, he’s the one who beat on him. I was just finishing up my errand to the bank. I don’t know those guys any more. I don't work for them.”

“Any more. You don't work for them any more,” said Shimeji, “I think that’s the most important thing. You know Kuchiki doesn't trust you. Should he? You gonna be a problem? Shiro?”

Gin pointed his glass at him. “Shimeji, I am fucking tired. I’ve been beat on for weeks for him, doing his little tasks for him and for you. I am not the fucking problem here. And do not call me that. Shit, I am not the problem.”

Shimeji took out an e-cigarette, took a drag and exhaled a long plume of vapour at the dark ceiling. “Well, you say that. But he still doesn't trust you.” He poked Gin in the bicep with a fat finger. “Keep that under advisement. It may come up and bite you in the ass if you don’t. Kuchiki isn’t going to leave you alone. He has never wanted you working here.”

Gin shrugged him off. “Sure thing. Absolutely. In between visits to my fucking eye surgeon I will find time to worry about that cold fucking fish.” He took a drink from his glass and fell silent.

Shimeji didn't leave. He sat and smoked, blowing smoke rings and drinking occasionally from his bottle. Gin closed his eye to the room. He should just leave this idiot here and walk away. He could get an espresso on the way home. Anything was an improvement over this.

Then he felt his phone vibrate in his jacket pocket. He grabbed the phone and swiped through his messages. Then he clicked on the poem.

 “You are checking your poem aren't you? Is it the one about the monkey and the raincoat?” Abarai asked, sliding onto the banquette on Gin’s other side.

“Where did you come from Abarai? Shit you startled me.” Shimeji said. “Well now boys that’s certainly my cue to go mingle. Behave yourself Shiro. And remember what I said.” He hung onto his bottle and slid off the seat heading towards the karaoke.

“Piss off Shimeji and I already said, do not fucking call me that.” Gin didn’t look up. He turned his phone to Abarai and showed him the poem on the screen:

_Cold as it was We felt secure sleeping together In the same room._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Renji suggests a poem that he thinks might be the Bash-o haiku that Gin is looking at on his phone.
> 
> Winter downpour - even the monkey needs a raincoat


	4. Elegiac Stanzas - heroic couplets

_Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone_

Gin sat cross-legged on his desk. The door to the hall was ajar and his small window was open, cooler air slowly coming into the stuffy room. On his bed, Abarai was slowly bleeding to death.

Gin had called it in once they were back on the street. He didn’t expect the phone to ring again a minute later and then have the Kuchiki on the other end of the line.

“What now?” he snapped into the phone trying not to lose his grip on Abarai’s side. “Explain,” said the curt voice, and he started to describe what had taken place, “Abarai got shot. Danwei found us and started…” Kuchiki cut him off. “Take him back to your place. Someone will meet you there.” And then he hung up.

Gin leaned back on the wall for a second and closed his eye. He put his phone back in his pocket. He didn't want to know, he thought. Too fucking complex for right now. Abarai was leaning on him heavily. Starting to breathe strangely, starting to lose his balance.

They had been ambushed, sitting in an upstairs section of a crappy hot pot place where they met a contact for a hand over. The guns had only come out after the purchase. The buyers had fled out the front. Gin and Abarai battled it out with Danwei’s guys and then ran for it out the back. Danwei’s soldiers had started shooting then.

 At some point Abarai had taken a shot in the chest. He didn't wear a vest. The wound was low near his waist and blood was seeping through his clothes. No exit wound that Gin could see.

Gin had barely gotten him out of there and down the fire stairs. It was hard to keep him moving. He was turning into dead weight, with red flecked foam in the corner of his mouth. Shit.

Gin had finally managed to cram Abarai into a cab. Why wouldn’t that son of a bitch Kuchiki send a pick up? What the hell was going on here? He thought briefly of taking Abarai to the A&E regardless of the Kuchiki’s order but he’d have to leave him there alone. Did Kuchiki want Abarai to die right here?

Gin had put pressure on the wound in the car. He could hear the whistle as Abarai tried to breathe. He had been shot low in the side of the chest and the bullet must have perforated his lung. Gin screamed at the cabbie to give him the plastic Circle-K bag the driver’s tea jar was sitting in.

Gin clawed open Abarai’s coat and found the blood soaked entrance wound. He ripped and shoved the shirt aside, flattening the plastic bag against his chest. He held it on flat with his hand against Abarai’s hard side, warm skin starting to cool.

Abarai was leaning heavily against Gin, his face pressing on the top Gin’s head as Gin worked on him, breathing laboriously into his hair. Pain seemed to hit him at the end of each shallow breath. His eyes were closed and his face pale and grey under the black tattoos.

The cab driver said “No blood in the back seat. Don’t die in my cab!” Gin just waved his other bloodstained hand at the driver, scowling “Drive faster, you stupid fuck, and he won’t.”

++++++

_Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves._

Gin heard a commotion in the hall and jumped down from the desk to open the door. Before he made it the two steps across the room, the Kuchiki opened the door fully with a bang, his black-gloved hand tight on the door handle. “Shiro, where is Abarai?” he shoved Gin out of the way, and moved to the bed to look down at him. He put his hand on Abarai’s arm and bowed his head.

Gin stood in front of the desk. His shirt, vest and trousers were covered in blood, Abarai’s blood. Gin stared at Kuchiki from under his bangs, with his good eye narrowed in anger. “What the fuck do you mean ‘where’s Abarai?’ You can’t see him in lying in the bed bleeding to death in this tiny shitty room? And don’t call me that.”

Gin continued, “What is all this shit for now? It’s too late asshole. You didn't give a fuck when I called you for the pickup the first time. I can’t stop the bleeding and he can’t breathe.” He stopped, unable to speak further he was so charged up. His hands were trembling uncontrollably.

The officers in the hall leaned in, interested, with hands on holsters when Gin started to mouth off, but Kuchiki ignored him and didn’t answer. He just flipped over the sheet with a gloved hand. Abarai was on the bed breathing shallowly, blood seeping through bandages around his chest and abdomen. When they had gotten back to the room, Gin had cut his shirt off him to try and clean the wound.

Abarai now lay on his back in a small pool of blood on the bed. Struggling to breathe, his face was turned away from them to the wall. His skin was grey, sweaty and pale, he lay with his red hair crumpled under him on the bed.

Kuchiki’s officers crowded the hallway waiting for direction, a wall of sunglasses and overcoats. Kuchiki signalled someone with a wave of the black glove, and an irritated looking man in glasses with grey hair squeezed into the room to start his work. He put his leather bag on the floor between his feet and took thin rubber gloves out of his coat pocket. He bent down to Abarai and began to examine the wound. He frowned and turned back to Kuchiki.

Gin sat back down on the desktop to get out of their way, clutching his can of coffee. He leaned forward a bit to try and see past the men standing in front of him. An officer shoved his way in with a single cylinder oxygen tank and all attention turned to the bed.

++++++

_Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come._

They took Abarai out in the sheet. Gin stayed on his desk, arms curled tightly around his knees. Carrying the heavy body between them in the stained sheet, two officers struggled to get him out the door and down the hallway. Kuchiki had walked alongside the body as if in a funeral cortege. His head was bowed, Gin couldn't see if he was crying. His long straight hair concealed his face. He hadn’t said a word since he had first asked frantically where Abarai was.

In his now empty room, Gin let his head fall forward to his chest. He closed his good eye. After the first aid, the praying and the fucking anxiety of getting Abarai to his room and into the bed, he had checked his phone while waiting for the Kuchiki to arrive. The poetry text was still on his phone screen.

He could feel his throat closing and tears welling up behind his eyelids. What the fuck, it isn't as if they were that close really. He told himself. He’d seen worse right? He’d done worse. Shit. He was getting weak working for this organization.

The smell in his room was overpoweringly metallic with the odor of blood. With his eye closed, his mind kept repeating the glimpse he had caught of a large bloodstain seeping through Abarai’s side that had soaked into his tatty futon. Abarai’s ripped up shirt still on the floor half kicked under the bed frame.

Opening his eye again, he put his hand up to smooth out his hair and felt a stickiness on his fingers. Shit. He had Abarai’s blood in his hair from the cab ride. His stomach lurched involuntarily. His nerves were shot. He was running on adrenaline still.

He straightened up. He moved off the desk stiffly. He had to change his own bloody clothes and get that shit off him. He would have to throw out the clothes he was wearing as they were crusted with blood. Trousers, vest, shirt and jacket all were covered in Abarai’s blood. Would have been labelled a Class IV hemorrhage, his brain helpfully supplied.

Gin left his room with the door open, and walked down the hallway towards the bathroom. As he walked past the door to Abarai’s room, without really thinking about it, his trembling pale and long fingered hand reached out to try the doorknob. It opened.

++++++

Gin shoved Abarai’s room door open. The idiot hadn't locked it. It was surprisingly Spartan for a guy who seemed so disorganized in his daily life. Neatly made bed, the same desk but as Gin’s with a chair, a washbasin, small stack of books by the bed, a rifle case, a bukuto and a bag of well used shinei in the corner, a sword on a vertical stand and a small picture of a dark haired woman in a frame on the desk. Some of his clothing hanging on the back of the door. Something on the desk caught his attention.

Gin stepped nearer to the desk and his gaze returned to the photo. He picked up the frame. What the fuck? He thought it was someone he recognized, in fact, he thought it might be Kuchiki’s sister.  Were they related somehow to Abarai? Gin was surprised that they had any relationship outside of the Kuchiki as a fucking prick of a boss. Hulking tattooed guy would make one hell of a black sheep for such pale and refined crime boss family.

When Gin had worked for Danwei as Shiro, and by extension Aizen Sosuke, he had seen Abarai a couple of times at confrontations, treaty meetings or hand offs. They had never really has cause to talk. Now, he had been working with the guy for two years. He had the guy picking up his drycleaning for fuck’s sake.

How did he not know that there had been a closer connection between Kuchiki and Abarai? Seriously a bukuto and a sword? What was going on with the automatic rifle? Shit. He had told himself he wouldn't ransack the room but he flipped the frame over and read the inscription on the back. ‘To Renji from Rukia, O tell me the truth about love.’ Shit. Renji.

He was so wrapped up in his own head in these last two years that he thought he had known every thing about Abarai. That he was an open book, a moron, just hired muscle, an errand running baboon. His belongings told Gin a slightly different story. Fuck, he had his head up his own ass and he had just watched the man die in his room.

Gin hung his head. Shit, he was fucked up. He should just go back to working as Shiro again. He didn’t deserve anything different. He slipped down to his knees in front of the door, bending forward and resting his forehead on the cool floor.

Fuck. Renji, why you? Why now? He could never be anyone good, change anything in his life, ever improve anything for himself. For nothing now can ever come to any good. He just couldn’t get any lower in this life.

Fuck you Renji you asshole. Fucking dead bullshit. Gin’s bad eye was throbbing. This had finally exhausted him completely. Gin found himself sobbing on Abarai’s fucking floor.

The tears ran out after a while. Gin was still kneeling, head to the floor when he heard a slight apologetic cough from the hallway. Almost comically, he turned his head so he could see the hallway with his good eye. He saw a pair of very expensive shoes standing on the threadbare hall carpet in front of Abarai’s half open door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The inscription on the photo is from a W.H. Auden poem of the same name 'O tell me the truth about love'.
> 
> Perhaps you had guessed that the poem of the day was Stop all the clocks/Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden 1936
> 
> Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,  
> Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,  
> Silence the pianos and with muffled drum  
> Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 
> 
> Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead  
> Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,  
> Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,  
> Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. 
> 
> He was my North, my South, my East and West,  
> My working week and my Sunday rest,  
> My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;  
> I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
> 
> The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;  
> Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;  
> Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.  
> For nothing now can ever come to any good.


	5. Rhymed Stanza - Pastoral

 “Hey Shiro, eyes up here man.” The man standing in the hallway said. “I’ve heard from Shimeji that you are having an issue and I’m going to do a little intervention of my own.”

The man in the hallway had sharp sideburns and a fashionable goatee. He was wearing a dark skinny tailored suit with a pale shirt and tie. He had heavy bracelets on both wrists, showing under the short sleeves of his tight suit jacket.

Gin straightened up from the floor and sat back on his ankles in seiza, hands on his thighs, looking at the guy in the hall with a narrowed eye. He frowned. “Torii, do not call me that you dumbass. You can go to hell and leave me alone.”

The man ignored his outburst, a smile on his face. “You really do look like shit at the moment. The Kuchiki isn’t pleased that you got his little lap dog killed. I think we need to talk about this elsewhere. Go get cleaned up, I can't take you anywhere looking like that.”

He nodded down the hallway, “Which one of these fucking closets is your room? Because I can tell from looking that this one certainly ain’t it.”

Gin scowled at him and remained sitting for a heartbeat, before he ran his hand through his hair and sullenly got up from the floor. Torii said sarcastically, “Good boy!”

He added, “Get going, I don't have all day. I’m in between appointments and I’m treating you as an emergency. I’ll wait in your room. Do you have roaches? Can I sit on something clean?”

Gin said darkly, “Abarai just died in that room you fuck.” “Yes,” said Torii matter-of-factly, “and I will wait in your shitty little room for you to get out of the zombie death clothing and wash your fucking hair so we can discuss it like gentlemen somewhere that is not here, a shit hole where assassins go to die apparently.”

Gin stared at him as if he could incinerate him with his good eye. Torii said “Get. Going. Now.” And waved his hand at him, with bracelets jingling. “I’m sure I can find your little cage down this hallway. Isn’t it this way? Will it be the one with all the blood?” He sailed off down the hall to Gin’s room.

Gin hung his head, cursing his shit luck again today, and started to unbutton his vest and shirt as he walked down the hallway to the bathroom.

++++++

_Do quickly make the example yours; And, ere we see, Nip in the blossom all our hopes and thee._

Torii flicked through Gin’s phone while he waited for him to get out of the shower. He decided against actually sitting on anything so he was just leaning on the desk. He had left the door wide open and was sipping a beer he had found on the windowsill.

Torii looked up from the phone. Gin stood in the open door staring back at Torii. Gin had a towel loosely around his waist, his wet hair was slicked back, his bad eye un-bandaged. His hands full of bloodied crumpled clothing. Torii leered at him, “Nice, Shiro. You’ve lost weight since I last saw you.”

He clucked at Gin, “You seem a bit worn out. Is the Kuchiki working you too hard? I see more bruises on you now than I think I’ve ever seen on you before. And that eye is making my own eye hurt.”

Gin shouldered past him, avoiding looking at the bed. He shut the door with a bang behind him and started to take down clothing on hangers from the hanging bar. He dropped the towel and pulled on his boxers.

Torii was enjoying the show. Gin glared at him and then gave up. He put on his pants, adjusting himself to the left. The guy was a fucking asshole and whatever Gin did Torii would enjoy it too much.

Gin buttoned up his shirt, decided to forgo the vest. He started to strap on his holsters, back of the waistband, and extra under the arm, then the ankle. Torii smirked from the desk. “You go out with that eye looking like that?” Torii asked.

Gin told him to fuck off and got his first aid kit out from under the desk. While he worked on his eye patch with the gauze and scissors he asked “What exactly do you want today and why the fuck today?”

Torii looked serious,  “Well, you can’t ever work off your original debt to the Kuchiki if you owe an astronomical amount of blood money for Abarai. You’ll be living in a cardboard box pretty soon at this rate. I’m just trying to broker a better deal for you.”

Gin spluttered, staring at him, his voice cracking, “How the fuck is this my fucking fault? It’s the nature of the fucking job is it not?”

Torii clucked a little and answered him, shaking his head, “I guess Kuchiki thought you would keep Abarai safe and you failed at that task Shiro.”

Gin growled and slammed the kit down on the table and grabbed his suit jacket. “Where's my phone, Torii you asshole. My name is Gin. Gin. Fu-uck.” He was shouting.

He took a breath, “Let’s go wherever the fuck you are taking me and get this bullshit over with. I need coffee and cigarettes. Let’s just get this over with.”

Torii handed over Gin’s phone. “Gather the flowers, but spare the buds.” He grinned at Gin. “You are just a hopeless romantic aren’t you, Gin-Gin. Let’s go, you look much more presentable. I can be seen with you now. Let’s figure out how to keep the Kuchiki from killing you.”

++++++

_Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter._

Gin toyed with the heavy silver spoon on the white saucer in front of him. Then with the same hand, he tossed his crumpled linen napkin from his lap onto the table. Torii was on his phone, talking excitedly about equity, payment in kind for services already rendered and a potential return on a future investment. They were talking about him.

They had finished their coffee. Gin was smoking a cigarette, holding the lit ember inside his curled hand. He was sitting tensed on the edge of his chair. The restaurant was making him nervous. The heavy drapes on the windows, quiet atmosphere, the aproned ponytailed waiters scuttling back and forth, Gin found it deadening. He flicked his cigarette butt into a cut glass ashtray on the table.

Torii smiled behind his phone and waved his hand in the direction of a darkened hallway when Gin excused himself. Once in the gents, he slid the lock on a stall and sat on the toilet lid. He checked his pants pocket and pulled out a small waxed paper envelope.

He tapped out a small amount of the powder onto the back of his hand and snorted it. He touched his nostril, licked his hand and then rubbed a little more of the drug on his gums reflexively. He sat still for a minute waiting for the hit to take effect.

He stared down at his hands where they were trembling on his thighs. His fingers pale, nails almost blue, then the rush hit him and he felt his anxiety lessen. His tired nervousness rolled away from him. He felt a warmth flow around his waist like a haramki.

He stood, adjusted his waistband holster, flushed and left the stall. He washed his hands mechanically and stared at his reflection in the mirror. Without making eye contact, the washroom attendant quietly asked him if he was feeling all right sir? He ignored her, staring at his face, his bangs hiding as always his bandaged eye. One good eye staring out of a deep dark circle in a tight pale face.

He adjusted his suit coat to make sure his weapons were covered, and left the washroom, ducking under the heavy drape separating it from the restaurant. He returned to his seat at the table.

Torii hung up, and turned back to Gin. “Well then. My assistant will be joining us shortly. I believe that we have an option on reducing the amount owing and she can help us with the details. But I have to ask you, do you still want to do this? I can also arrange for you to return to him you know.”

Gin laughed, a tight high sound, “I will never go back to work for that asshole Danwei and his bastard boss. Never. I’ll kill him first. Fuck yeah. I can deal with the Kuchiki.”

Torii frowned at him slightly and held out his hand, “Can I have your phone?” Gin looked at him questioningly and dropped it in his hand.

Torii swiped to the text messages, selected something and handed the phone back to him. Gin looked down at the phone, his poem email was on the screen. Torii had highlighted a couple of lines:

_But only with the roses plays; And them does tell What colour best becomes them, and what smell._

Torii said seriously, “I’m going to tell you what to do and you will do it. If you don't follow my instructions exactly, you know they will make you pay, and it will be a very high price that you will have to pay.”

++++++

_What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?_

Gin viciously kicked at the bound man lying tied on the wooden floor. Danwei made a muffled yelping sound and strained at his tight cloth gag. One bloody hand was pinned to the wooden floor with a knife, the other was broken and twisted behind his back. His feet were duct taped together. Gin snarled at him, “You fucker, what did you think I was going to do when I finally saw you? You really thought I was coming back to work as your dog, working for a shit like you? Never. Shiroyasha again? Fuck you. I am not him. I am not that.”

Gin leaned down and spat in his face. “You asshole. I’m tired and my eye hurts. I don’t feel like the effort and I don’t want to mess up my shoes. I’ve got a little helper here to assist me today.” Gin nudged a jerry can of gasoline forward with his foot. He tipped it over, spilling out to create a puddle around the man, soaking his clothing.

“And my helper, she has a few friends,” Gin walked over to a stack of propane tanks and angrily began to open the valves, humming tunelessly. The man on the floor began to keen a high pitched whine, his eye widening even more in fear.

Torii’s assistant Momo had made the appointment with Danwei. Gin hated her, but she could get things done. She also was a refugee from Danwei, she had worked her magic and the meeting got set up. It was supposed to be a meet to discuss Gin returning to work.

Shimenji had a few Kuchiki guys outside the caffe but the guy was an idiot. Danwei came in the caffe alone, leaving his soldiers outside to trade school yard insults with the Kuchikis.

Gin acted as soon as Danwei walked in. He sat down in the booth, thin cigar in his teeth and a smirk on his face. Gin immediately threw his double shot Americano in Danwei’s face and smashed him in the side of the head with the glass sugar container.

Danwei pitched forward onto the table, the view from outside blocked by the booth, Gin quickly had his head in a cloth bag, hands behind his back in a zip tie and was dragging him through the galley kitchen and into the waiting car.

In the dark warehouse, Gin squatted down next to Danwei. He stared at him seriously with his one good eye and a wide smile on his face. He leaned in closer. Gin could smell the odor of piss mixed with the gasoline. The smell of fear. He stared at him for a long moment. Gin reached out his hand and with one long finger stroked the man’s cheek. “Let’s get this over with. Che. You are so like a little puppet you know. The Kuchiki wants you dead, so you are dead. I am amazed that you have lived this long already.”

Gin straightened up, brushing down the front of his trousers. He picked up the gas can from the floor and carefully trailed a line of gas from Danwei to the smaller staff entrance door. He stepped outside onto the loading dock and set the can down. From inside his suit coat he brought out a lighter and an incense stick. Lighting the incense, he clasped it in both hands, brought it up above his head and then down. He bowed respectfully low to the building.

When he straightened up, Gin tossed the lit incense into the warehouse at the gas trail through the loading door. Watching the incense trace a high tumbling arc, he waited until it made contact with the wooden floor and then quickly turned, jumping down from the loading dock to the ground.

He covered his head with his arms as the building exploded in a ball of flames behind him. He was flattened to the ground from the force, a high plume of debris scattering to the ground around him.

The resulting silence was broken by a sudden alarm sounding from the building. His ears were ringing but he hadn't even gotten his suit dirty. He stood up, a little shakily, dusting himself off, weapons check. He half turned back to see flames licking the door and window frames, flames roiling inside the building with dark black smoke billowing up to the sky.

His phone vibrated in his suitcoat pocket. His ride was here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems Gin received by text in this chapter:
> 
> The Picture of Little T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers by Andrew Marvell
> 
> Ode to a Grecian Urn by John Keats


	6. Five two seven five - Western Haiku

The dark sleek car had pulled up to where he was standing. Gin wondered again why he had agreed to this meeting. He was currently in the road, in the rain, in the middle of the night without an umbrella. But whatever the prick wanted was apparently what he was going to have to do. The text message had not contained any details of course, only location and timing.

Gin huffed uselessly and flicked his cigarette butt away. Now or never, the rain wasn’t going to stop. He straightened up and brushed his completely sodden bangs out of his good eye with his fingers, then stepped nearer to the parked car. Fuck his shoes were completely destroyed. He knocked lightly on the closed car window with a knuckle.

Water trickled down his face as the darkened car window opened silently. He could barely see the person in the back seat. An angry voice said tightly, “What is your problem Shiro? I have shown you every courtesy up to this point, but you have defied me at every turn.”

Byakuya paused and turned towards Gin slightly, staring dark eyes fixed on his. “Are you so stupid that you don't know enough to come out of the rain?” his tense voice rising slightly. “Are you an untrainable dog that needs to be put out of its misery as it will not bend to its master’s commands?”

Byakuya seemed to be simmering, “You continue to owe me but I am no longer so interested in carrying the debt.” Gin kept the smile on his face but he didn’t think he had ever heard the Kuchiki so furious before. Good thing he was high or this could end very badly.

Gin grinned his most insincere smile as he leaned a little more towards the window. He wondered fleetingly what would happen if he unexpectedly opened the door and sat in Byakuya’s lap.

He lurched a little but recovered himself as he spoke, “You know that I did what needed to be done for you and the corporation, wakagashira. Respectfully sir, can I say that it is over for now?” Gin bowed slightly forward, dripping slightly, “My humblest apologies for losing your precious one. He was very important to me as well.”

Byakuya shot his gloved hand right out of the car window and grabbed Gin’s soaked jacket firmly, pulling him flush against the car with a thump, “Don’t even think to speak of Abarai right now Ichimaru.” He hissed at Gin. Byakuya’s pale face was tight, his eyes wide. “I will take your other eye in payment for those words or maybe I should just gut you here, now, to perhaps even out my costs.”

Gin backpedalled instantly, and choked out a litany of apologies. “Sorry. I meant nothing by it. Sorry. Of course sir. Apologies sir. Shit Kuchiki. Sir I’m so sorry. Wakagashira. Please sir. Please.” That sounded somewhat familiar to him. Add in a frightened whine and he would sound like most of his own clients.

Byakuya let go of his throat. Gin sputtered and scrabbled ineffectually at his water-logged tie and collar with both hands. He took a half-step back from the side of the car.  Shit, his other shoe was sopping.

Byakuya continued angrily, “You are reputed to be knowledgeable about poetry. I have always favoured these few lines “But none can guess Lisander's Soul, But those who sway'd his Destiny.”

Gin’s grin wobbled a little, starting to fall, what the fuck? The Kuchiki quoting poetry now? He covered his confusion by wiping his face to get the water out of his eye. The Kuchiki quoting that particular poem?

Bizarre fucking choice of stanzas as a favourite. Even for a midnight roadside conversation between killers in a monsoon that was fucking bizarre. He looked at Byakuya again, waiting warily.

“Ichimaru, I will leave you your eye for today.” Byakuya looked oddly thoughtful but still completely pissed off. “Check in with Shimeji at the office immediately. Do not delay or I will have you killed this time.” He leaned forward to tap the partition to signal the driver, “Although even if I thought the pyre was remotely fitting for the situation, you are not forgiven. Yet.” He paused, “If ever.” He added as a sullen afterthought.

Byakuya did finally turn and rapped on the partition, the tinted window slid up silently and the car drove off, splashing Gin’s pant legs as it went. “Of course he had to do that. Fucking Dracula.” Gin stepped back onto the sidewalk and squelched over to a nearby store awning to get a break from the relentless rain.

He rummaged in his jacket for a dry cigarette. His hands weren’t even shaking, and Byakuya had called him by his name. This time his suit really would be a write off though. Gin didn’t think he had ever been this wet before. Shit he needed a coffee and dry shoes.

++++++

Shimeji was not impressed with Gin’s appearance. He waved Gin over to the uncomfortable reception couch that was wrapped in plastic and handed him a towel. “Don’t sit on anything but this. Stand over here on this rug, you are messing up the office floor. What happened to you Shiro? You fall in the boss’s koi pond?”

Gin frowned and said “Che, don’t you guys ever sleep? What does he want from me now?” He turned away from Shimeji and started to take off his suit jacket.

Shimeji said “You better keep stripping, you’ll need to dry off and you don't have time to go back to your place and change.” Gin asked “For what? What’s the errand?”

“Well you aren’t going to the CircleK for snacks. You have to go down to Shinkiba to pick something up.”

Gin snapped his head around, holding his damp vest, to stare at Shimeji, “Okay, so fuck, am I picking something up from the cop shop or the fire station? What else is down there by the harbor? Fucking Tokyo Disney World? Shit you guys are trying to kill me. Shit.”

Shimeji tried to calm him down, “There are some good bars you know, there’s one right there with a swimming pool and a great view of the harbor. Anyway you won’t be down there for too long. Just a pick up, no drop. He’s a wakashu. Should be no problem.”

“Fuck. Is it an ambush? Why do we do everything in the night? We should be asleep.” Gin was nervous but the drugs were helping. As was getting out of his wet clothes.

“Actually you know where it is? It’s that industrial Koto area down there. You know. There’s a lumber yard down there that the Kuchiki needs something from.”

Gin was fighting with his sopping socks, “You going to toss me in the fucking wood chipper? I am getting tired of these endless errands.”

“You’ll need a car.” Shimeji took a drag on his e-cigarette and nodded.

Gin sighed, “I hate driving especially down there.” Shimeji shrugged. He exhaled a plume of vapour from his e-cigarette. “Just fucking do it you whiner. Want a coffee while you dry up? You have about 30 minutes before you have to leave.”

“Fuck, yes. Got a first aid kit? My eye is a mess and I have to change the bandage.”

Shimeji looked at him again, more closely this time. “Did you go see someone about that? It looks bad man.” He looked closer at Gin’s good eye. “You’re self medicating? You high right now? You have some balls doing that in front of the Kuchiki. Shit. If you are in pain you should go see the Doc.” Shimeji’s round face showed concern.

“Pain is a constant around here. And it is our business no?” Gin smiled his nicest smile. Shimeji said a bit testily, “If the Kuchiki finds out you are high at work then you know he really will kill you. What brought all this on? Abarai? Seriously?”

Gin kept his mouth shut after that and just kept on wringing out his wet things as Shimeji went to the kitchen to get coffee.

++++++

Gin parked the tiny car outside the lumber yard next to the fleet of parked green trucks and once again wondered about people’s motivation. His hands on the wheel looked too pale. The harbor was a view of nothing. The road went nowhere, in a circle. The wind off the harbor wasn’t pleasant. Still raining. Dark.

He got out of the car and paused next to a tall stack of pallets to light a cigarette, cupping the flame against the wind. The lighter illuminated his face for a second. The silver car parked across the lot from his flashed its lights. His good eye had an afterimage for a second from the brightness.

He walked over to the car slowly. He knew this guy. “So Shiro, I heard Kuchiki’s boyfriend got shot.” Asshole. Gin didn’t respond to the childish jibe. “Fuck off, where’s my shipment?” The guy answered, “Shiro, come on, what’s the rush? It’s just us and we have until dawn right?”

“I don't have that much time to spend with my mother let alone you. Let’s go. Who’s bringing the shit to my car? Just you? So?” Gin walked over to the car and stood behind the driver, cigarette in his mouth, one hand behind his back, other in his pocket. He felt odd and tight.

The driver opened his car door and got out, turning towards Gin, with a briefcase in his hands. “Man, you are like a fucking eel Shiro, always getting out of things, slippery. I wouldn’t trust you. Why does Kuchiki I wonder?”

Gin took the case from him, his legs were twitching as they stood there. “That’s it?” “Nope, the rest is in the trunk. Two hockey bags. I’ll go get a cart.” Gin shook his head, “Forget that, I’ll take one, you take one. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

Gin’s phone buzzed while they were shifting the bags. He left it to buzz for the moment, the vibration in his suit coat was comforting in a strange way. The guy tossed the bag he was carrying in Gin’s trunk, Gin stashed his and the case and then they were done.

They didn’t shake hands after he slammed the trunk but Gin also didn’t kill him. Gin restrained himself from punching him in the back, slitting his throat and then tossing him in the beehive burner with the sawdust. Guy was annoying. Errand was boring.

Gin waited in his car for the guy to drive off first. He checked his phone, couple of texts from Shimeji, poem, nothing else. Haiku again. This poetry app was getting creepy and personal.

_the wake of an upstream eel in dawn’s light_

Gin took out his stash from his suit coat pocket, and took a hit. As he pulled out of the loading dock and headed back over the causeway he licked the back of his hand and stared out at the sunrise over the harbor. He put both hands back on the top of the steering wheel. Fuck he was screwed. He had a sudden crushing sense of foreboding. He wasn’t going to make it back to the office.

On his left he could see a Cosmo gas station. His heart felt like it was beating too fast. He could feel his eye leaking down through the bandage but he couldn't tell if it was real. He managed to pull over in the station lot and dial Torii before he blacked out, heart thumping, his breathing short and hitched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Kuchiki quotes two lines from Aphra Behn - The Disappointment, which is a very odd poem for him to know.
> 
> The poem of the day is by Marshall Hryciuk.


	7. Elegiac meter - Eulogy

Gin wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or awake. He forced his eye open, dizzy. He was in a car, not moving, parked but key in ignition and running. It wasn’t the car he had been driving. They were not at the Cosmo station any more. He was in the tiny backseat, half-lying on the seat and the floor.

He felt his face with trembling fingers. His nose was aching and crusty. He had dried blood all down the front of his shirt. His jacket was missing, he guessed that meant his phone and wallet were gone too. He did a shaky weapons check. Nothing else missing. Keys still in his pants pocket.

He carefully touched his eye patch with trembling fingers, worried of what he would find. The patch was thankfully dry but his head felt like it was filled with nails and his hands would not stop shaking.

He tried to focus his good eye, it looked like two people were standing in front of the car in the headlights. There seemed to be something wrong with his hearing. The figures seemed to be moving oddly. Either the car stereo was on or he was tripping.

The larger figure, maybe a man, on the right threw the smaller figure into the side of a dumpster. Then the larger person reached into its jacket drew a handgun and took aim. The smaller one, a pale smudge he thought might be a woman, raised its hands, shaking its head but then jerked backwards, slumping against the dumpster. The smaller person tried to stand up fully, walked smack into the dumpster and then fell bonelessly to the ground. Gin’s stomach lurched, that was a corpse.

The man turned and walked towards the car, replacing the gun in his holster. Gin scrabbled around and got back onto the seat without any grace. He found a box of Kleenex in the back window ledge of the car and tried to fix his nose. He gave up. Shit.

The car door was opened and Torii got in. He turned to Gin with a smile, “Thanks for joining us again Gin. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”

Gin tried to speak but ended up gesturing with his chin at the person by the dumpster on the ground. Torii looked over coolly “Yes. I had to fix a problem. Not just a problem for you. But although you didn't know it, she was seriously fucking you over my friend.”

Gin didn’t think his voice worked but managed to croak out, “What the fuck are you talking about? Who is that? Who did you kill?” Torii grinned at him and tossed him a towel from the front passenger seat. “You are a mess Gin. And that mess just follows you around. When did you start using again and where did you get your drugs? I’ll tell you. That bitch Momo, she was playing us all.”

He took the car out of park, headlights passing over the dead woman as he turned out of the alley and back onto the street.

As Torii drove him wherever, Gin stared up at the sky out the window, his voice raspy, “Torii man, is it still the same fucking day? It’s still dark.”

Torii answered him, Gin could hear the smile even if he couldn't see it, “It has already been a day since I found you passed out at the gas station. It's tomorrow. I’ve been working very hard on your behalf in the meantime.”

“I always hated that vengeful bitch with her stupid bun.” Gin said with a cough. Torii laughed, “I hated her too but she was useful to us for a time. “

The streetlights passed by at intervals, illuminating the inside of the car. Gin could see Torii’s earrings glinting and the sleek back of his head. The dashboard glowed orange and he could see the music was still on even if he couldn’t hear if any longer.

Torii had said something else to him or maybe he was on his phone but Gin couldn’t hold his focus. He was bone weary and his head ached fiercely.  Eventually he stopped trying and just slumped back against the seat and passed out once more.

++++++

Shimeji and Torii were seated across from Gin in the caffe with intense faces, both sitting with their arms crossed. They looked so pissed today. He was still shaky but upright, unsure of what he had missed. His cigarette now sat smouldering ignored in the metal ashtray on the caffee table.

Gin had gone to the washroom to try and make himself look vaguely presentable. In there alone, after dealing with his ruined face and clothes, he had taken a few oxy he had found stashed in his vest pocket so he could just feel better. He just needed to feel better, even if only for a little while.

Gin wasn’t feeling any pain now but he was having a problem tracking the conversation. “Momo had bugged your phone for Aizen to monitor the Kuchiki.” Shimeji said. “So Abarai was a apparently an intended target not exactly collateral damage.”

“How is that even possible? The phone thing?” Gin said, startled by the personal attention he seemed to be getting from Aizen.

Shimeji shrugged, “Well, where did you get that poetry app from? It was broadcasting your texts, calls, emails back to them. The poetry app was sending you what they wanted you to have.” He wiggled his fingers like he was hypnotizing Gin.

Gin snorted, “Aizen was going to break me with poetry? How did stupid Momo manage that anyway? My phone is always with me.”

Torii chimed in waving his hands, bracelets clinking, “Well you actually leave it lying around a lot you stupid fuck. And you have no password. “

Gin added pressing his fingers on his throbbing bad eye socket, “But on the drugs thing, I never get them from fucking Momo. I wouldn’t have drunk a cup of coffee from her. She wanted to get me from day one.”

“Yes apparently she did. I asked around.” Shimeji took a drag on his electronic cigarette. “And you know, she did a good job. You used to be the Shiroyasha, now you are a one eyed fucking grieving drug addicted asshole.” Torii spoke up “You forgot to add vain emotional cripple.”

Gin struggled to hold his coffee cup without shaking. Torii slid a phone across the table. “Take this one, we’ve cleared it. Try not to get a virus this time. New number, voicemail already set up, call display, contacts include your tailor so you can get back to your former sartorial splendor.” Torii waved a hand towards the current remains of Gin’s suit and dirty shirt.

Gin interrupted, “My tailor?” staring at the phone on the table, the pieces slotting together in his mind. “Fuck.” He hissed, “That fucking bastard. That “apprentice” I had never seen before. The instructions in Cantonese. God. So stupid. Right in front of me. And then in the rooming house dropping off the suits.” Gin dropped his head into his hands.

Torii said sharply, “Something we need to know Gin?” Shimeji slammed his hand on the table, “So, do we need to go visit your tailor to have a little talk?” He leaned forward with his hand on his holster.

Gin, sat stock still in his chair, he thought they could hear his heart beating. He said in a low voice, without raising his head, “Yes I believe so.” Torii, nudged the new phone towards him again on the table, “Call the fucker then. We certainly have the time today. Let’s make an appointment for a fitting.”

++++++

Once they got to Tobakaido they said he was too ill to be of any use. He didn’t argue, he was suffering at this point in the withdrawal. He didn't trust his reflexes in a fight, or his strength. His depth perception was complete shit now.

Gin sat outside the train station kiosk and ignored a can of coffee from the vending machine, smoking cigarettes while he was waiting.

He heard the sirens before he saw the flames. After a little while Torii sauntered up to the bench Gin was sitting on by the bus stop. Together they watched the fire department try to put out the flames billowing out of second floor of the building formerly housing his tailor’s shop. Torii patted his jacket pockets looking for his lighter. Gin leaned over and offered his.

“So Torii, I have to fucking ask. Has Shimeji ever been pulled over for speeding or anything? If the cops ever searched his car they would find a number of very interesting and lethal things.” Torii said “No never. Shimeji blends in. No-one expects such a moonfaced idiot to be such a success. Shimeji is so good at finales, the complete closing off of open issues.”

He winked and continued with a grin, “The boy stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled. The flame that lit the battle's wreck shone round him o'er the dead.” Gin paused mid-drag on his cigarette, his shoulders tensing, startled and offended.

Torii tossed his head back and laughed, “We put parental controls on your phone Gin. Sorry.” Torii looked him in the eye, and giggled, “Sorry that you can’t be trusted with apps on your phone Gin, but I’m willing to read you poetry once a day if that helps heal your broken soul.”

++++++

Gin had walked over to the Tofukuji temple complex after Shimeji and Torii took off in the car. He found himself walking through the temple buildings and pathways in the cool afternoon, perhaps to sit to view the moss garden and to pull himself together. He had nowhere to go today.  Fuck he was an idiot and seemingly out of a job now thank you Byakuya fucking Kuchiki.

A crowd of monks and tourists caught his eye, and he walked closer to see what was going on. A small sign listed hours for a rare nehan-zu on exhibit in the building. He decided to join the crowd, he had never had the chance to see the huge painting at Tofukuji before. As he waited in line he felt a childish urge to wash his hands and face as if preparing to greet his grandparents.

He didn't expect his heart to hurt when he went inside the darkened building and saw the enormous painting of Buddha, lying on a blanket, so blankly serene in death. Death in Gin’s experience was such hard work, generally noisy, soaking wet and always smelled fucking awful. Gin turned and fled back out to the wide paths and trees of the temple complex.

He walked around until his heartbeat had slowed and he found the northern moss garden. The green checkerboard squares looked so soft and lush. The dry dusty raked stone zen gardens of the Honbo had never appealed to him in the same way.

Gin had a paper in his pocket, the paper that he had wrapped his pills in before all this shit went down in fucking flames. He smoothed the paper flat on his thigh as he sat still, kneeling on the porch. With shaky fingers he found his reading glasses and put them on.

He raised the paper and in a low voice so as not to disturb the others coming and going on the porch he began to recite the poem he had written there in blue ink what felt like centuries ago. His voice gaining strength slowly as he read, to the final stanza:

_And we, who always think of happiness as rising, feel the emotion that almost overwhelms us, whenever a happy thing falls._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Torii teases Gin with a quote from Casabianca by Felicia Hemans.
> 
> Gin has copied out Elegy X by Rainer Maria Rilke.


End file.
